Asian agchem companies move forward in Brazil

Chinese and Indian companies are advancing strongly in the Brazilian agchem market, which has tripled the sales in the last decade. 

 

In 2001, imports were only 40 tons from India and 2.06 thousand tons from China. These numbers jumped to 32.18 thousand and 107.44 thousand tons respectively.

 

Currently there are 335 licenses granted to Chinese companies to sell agchem products in Brazil, including raw material and formulation. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there are 106 Indian companies active in Brazil and another 600 requests of Asian companies under analysis.

 

Flávio Hirata, from consultancy Allier Brazil, said that this number can be overestimated due to duplications, since one company can be suppliers of different products. However, he highlighted that there is "100 to 150 companies, still a significant number".

 

According to Hirata, Asian companies already looked at the formulated products sold directly to farmers. "The ones who are coming now missed the best timing. In 2005, there was less procedures and a product could be approved within one or two years. Today, it takes three to five years. For the formulated product, the time jumped from two months to one year and a half", explained by him.